Solaris

@jlliagre

So basically what your saying is that I cannot create a partition and then assign that partition to a zpool?

I know I can create filesystems in my zpool and assign SMB or NFS to it, but that is easy. I want to create partitions and then assign respective partitions to different zpools, then create filesystems.

---------- Post updated at 06:12 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:43 PM ----------

Ok, well after some testing it seems like partitions cannot be used to create zpools, only disk. So I guess I found my answer. Thank you all for helping

That's not what I wrote. You certainly can create partitions and have zpools using then as underlying devices if you think that's the best solution for you.
What's wrong with "easy" ??
You can do that, although that would be suboptimal (less flexibility, less performance).
This is incorrect.
You can create zpools from whole disks, primary and extended partitions, slices and plain files.

@jlliagre

Easy is not what I want, that is what's wrong with it.

Well , it maybe I am incorrect, even though I cant find anywhere online of how to create zpools from different partitions of ONE disk.If this is true you seem to know the answer but not willing to share ,so does anyone know how to do this?

The process is very simple:

- Using format --> fdisk, destroy the EFI partition, then create, assuming you want a
regular MBR layout, a Solaris 2 MBR partition, and make sure it is active.
- Create whatever partition you want using format --> partition. Label the disk to save the
new VTOC.
- Then simply create a zpool specifying the slice you want to use. For example, if you
are using a second IDE disk and you wish to use slice 0, you would specify c0d1s0.

Code:

# zpool create mypool c0d1s0

I think that you confuse partition and slice. Partition is for DOS system where we have primary and extended partition and so on.
Now when you destroy your zpool you have that kind of partition but you must to divide it to slices.
You can see the current slice structure by using

Code:

# prtvtoc /dev/dsk/c8d1s2

I'm not sure suffix s2, so test it with or without.

To create new slices you must use subcommand partition from format.
Procedure is as follows:
1. execute format
2. select your disk c8d1
3. select partition or abbreviation p
4. select print or p to see how is now disk divided
5. select 0 and change parameters of slice 0
- name
- mode
- start sector
- length
5.a. Repeat this steps with next slices.
6. after you create all new slices select label or l to write new label to disk.
7.after all nescessary confirmation exit from format with double q.

Now you should have some slices on your disk.
Use prtvtoc to see the difference between previous and current state.
You can use that slices to create zpools.
For example:

Code:

# zpool create newpool1 c8d1s0

@everyone....

But surely, unless something has changed in Solaris 11 x86, you can't set up 'slices' on a disk with a EFI label. cbtshare has posted a display of the disk label showing it as EFI which is what it would be having been in a zfs pool. Doesn't the label need to be changed to SMI before you can write a sliced disk table?

Also, my understanding is that EFI labels and SMI labels put their partition tables in different locations (starting disk sectors) so utilities for one of the labels may not work at all on a disk with the other label (often displaying 'unknown')

I am not certain that I am right on this hence invite comments from everyone on this thread.

SunBlog: Changing a disk label (EFI / SMI)

---------- Post updated at 10:24 AM ---------- Previous update was at 10:12 AM ----------

Just Googled and found this....

UNIX my first love...: EFI ( Extensible Firmware Interface) disk label & SMI (Sun Microsystems Inc) or VTOC disk label.

Does that work?

---------- Post updated at 10:49 AM ---------- Previous update was at 10:24 AM ----------

I reckon that, as per my previous post#3, it needs a Sun (SMI) label written to the disk.

@GP81

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.

@everyone

I kinda did it a bit different , where I used the partiton to create a zpool.In format, fdisk I created 2 partitions on my disk( my disk c8d1, the partitions would then become p0 and p1)

so to add my zpool to partitions I simply:

Code:

root@SolarisServer:~# zpool create extra6 /dev/dsk/c8d1p1
root@SolarisServer:~# zpool create extra7 /dev/dsk/c8d1p2